Can Sir Keir Starmer revive the Labour Party? (Vol. 2)
Discussion
It seems to me that what Labour is proposing is 1) little different from what we have now, and 2) broadly what the Conservatives were suggesting anyway. The only real difference is that operational matters will be handled by civil servants rather than the train operators. Given what a fine job (not!) the state makes of running the Home Office, the DVLA and so on, the prospect of Louise Haigh's minions running things doesn't fill me with confidence.
Where the real money is going is to the rolling stock leasing companies: the 'ROSCO's', and yet Labour is proposing to leave them alone, perhaps because it would be jolly expensive to nationalise them - they're highly profitable. I sense the influence of Rachel Reeves in all this, insisting that no money can be spent. So there you have it, folks, a window dressing exercise that'll cost nothing (yeah, right) and change very little. Starmer's Labour's usual offer, in a nutshell.
Where the real money is going is to the rolling stock leasing companies: the 'ROSCO's', and yet Labour is proposing to leave them alone, perhaps because it would be jolly expensive to nationalise them - they're highly profitable. I sense the influence of Rachel Reeves in all this, insisting that no money can be spent. So there you have it, folks, a window dressing exercise that'll cost nothing (yeah, right) and change very little. Starmer's Labour's usual offer, in a nutshell.
Hants PHer said:
It seems to me that what Labour is proposing is 1) little different from what we have now, and 2) broadly what the Conservatives were suggesting anyway. The only real difference is that operational matters will be handled by civil servants rather than the train operators. Given what a fine job (not!) the state makes of running the Home Office, the DVLA and so on, the prospect of Louise Haigh's minions running things doesn't fill me with confidence.
Where the real money is going is to the rolling stock leasing companies: the 'ROSCO's', and yet Labour is proposing to leave them alone, perhaps because it would be jolly expensive to nationalise them - they're highly profitable. I sense the influence of Rachel Reeves in all this, insisting that no money can be spent. So there you have it, folks, a window dressing exercise that'll cost nothing (yeah, right) and change very little. Starmer's Labour's usual offer, in a nutshell.
What these services (and utilities) need is world class management. The chances of that eminating from within our public sector would be rated somewhere between slim & none. Where the real money is going is to the rolling stock leasing companies: the 'ROSCO's', and yet Labour is proposing to leave them alone, perhaps because it would be jolly expensive to nationalise them - they're highly profitable. I sense the influence of Rachel Reeves in all this, insisting that no money can be spent. So there you have it, folks, a window dressing exercise that'll cost nothing (yeah, right) and change very little. Starmer's Labour's usual offer, in a nutshell.
That's not to say that what's going on now is anywhere near good or competent but shuffling the deckchairs isn't going to change anything much
Hants PHer said:
It seems to me that what Labour is proposing is 1) little different from what we have now, and 2) broadly what the Conservatives were suggesting anyway. The only real difference is that operational matters will be handled by civil servants rather than the train operators. Given what a fine job (not!) the state makes of running the Home Office, the DVLA and so on, the prospect of Louise Haigh's minions running things doesn't fill me with confidence.
Where the real money is going is to the rolling stock leasing companies: the 'ROSCO's', and yet Labour is proposing to leave them alone, perhaps because it would be jolly expensive to nationalise them - they're highly profitable. I sense the influence of Rachel Reeves in all this, insisting that no money can be spent. So there you have it, folks, a window dressing exercise that'll cost nothing (yeah, right) and change very little. Starmer's Labour's usual offer, in a nutshell.
And little change will occur over the Labour Parliament to that already existing across the board.Where the real money is going is to the rolling stock leasing companies: the 'ROSCO's', and yet Labour is proposing to leave them alone, perhaps because it would be jolly expensive to nationalise them - they're highly profitable. I sense the influence of Rachel Reeves in all this, insisting that no money can be spent. So there you have it, folks, a window dressing exercise that'll cost nothing (yeah, right) and change very little. Starmer's Labour's usual offer, in a nutshell.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rosie-duffield-...
From
In September 2021, Starmer said that Duffield’s comments were “something that shouldn’t be said” and “not right”. Asked whether he would apologise to Duffield, the Labour leader said: “I don’t want this to go back into this toxic place where everybody is divided”.
To
Rosie Duffield was right to say only women have a cervix, Sir Keir Starmer has said, three years after he criticised the Labour MP for the description.
It's funny how he thinks he has a good relationship with someone he hasn't spoken to for three years.
From
In September 2021, Starmer said that Duffield’s comments were “something that shouldn’t be said” and “not right”. Asked whether he would apologise to Duffield, the Labour leader said: “I don’t want this to go back into this toxic place where everybody is divided”.
To
Rosie Duffield was right to say only women have a cervix, Sir Keir Starmer has said, three years after he criticised the Labour MP for the description.
It's funny how he thinks he has a good relationship with someone he hasn't spoken to for three years.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-cut-trai...
No more last minute train cancellations under Labour because they'll just remove them from the timetable.
The plan also complains that the government control too much, so the solution is nationalisation.
I am too young to remember nationalised railways but I look forward to getting the full experience.
No more last minute train cancellations under Labour because they'll just remove them from the timetable.
The plan also complains that the government control too much, so the solution is nationalisation.
I am too young to remember nationalised railways but I look forward to getting the full experience.
Mr Penguin said:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-cut-trai...
No more last minute train cancellations under Labour because they'll just remove them from the timetable.
The plan also complains that the government control too much, so the solution is nationalisation.
I am too young to remember nationalised railways but I look forward to getting the full experience.
I remember them and it wasn't that good. But nothing has to be the same now as it was 30-40 years ago. The world has moved on.No more last minute train cancellations under Labour because they'll just remove them from the timetable.
The plan also complains that the government control too much, so the solution is nationalisation.
I am too young to remember nationalised railways but I look forward to getting the full experience.
Randy Winkman said:
Mr Penguin said:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-cut-trai...
No more last minute train cancellations under Labour because they'll just remove them from the timetable.
The plan also complains that the government control too much, so the solution is nationalisation.
I am too young to remember nationalised railways but I look forward to getting the full experience.
I remember them and it wasn't that good. But nothing has to be the same now as it was 30-40 years ago. The world has moved on.No more last minute train cancellations under Labour because they'll just remove them from the timetable.
The plan also complains that the government control too much, so the solution is nationalisation.
I am too young to remember nationalised railways but I look forward to getting the full experience.
BR response .. cancel the service entirely .. ergo no problem/complaints anymore
Wasn’t it Labour that implemented all the Beeching cuts to the railways
President Merkin said:
Implemented, a carefully chosen word. Macmillan kicked it off, the Conservative government of the day accepted Beeching's reports, Labour, elected in 1964 began closures. It would be very easy to simply type out Labour shut the railways but also very simplistic.
That’s why I didn’t say that Labour could have chosen not to decimate the railways but they didn’t
Earthdweller said:
There was an article in one of the papers about the good old days of BR and one incident quoted was of overcrowding on a route in the south west .. big push for more trains/carriages
BR response .. cancel the service entirely .. ergo no problem/complaints anymore
Wasn’t it Labour that implemented all the Beeching cuts to the railways
Mixed bag. Wilson campaigned in the 1964 GE on not implementing the Beeching plan, then carried out the majority of the closures (plus some that Beeching hadn't listed) due to a combination of a) seeing how much money BR was hemorrhaging b) intense lobbying from unions representing the car and construction industries. BR response .. cancel the service entirely .. ergo no problem/complaints anymore
Wasn’t it Labour that implemented all the Beeching cuts to the railways
Then Barbara Castle introduced the concept of the 'social railway' which identified that some routes had a social value beyond their financial state and changed the legal and legislative framework to permit operational subsidies - freeing BR from its obligation (held since 1948 and carried over from its private predecessors) to operate at a profit.
On the 'BR cancelled the service to remove overcrowding' thing. Yes, that happened, but that's a symptom of the assumptions and standards of the time, not an inherent upshot of nationalisation.
From Beeching in 1962 to 1989 (when the Settle-Carlise route was reprieved) the entire overriding 'mission statement' of BR was Managed Decline. At every level, success (especially management success) was measured - often explicitly - on how many miles of line were closed and how well a manager could negotiate legal, political and public objections to reduce/remove services. It wasn't even about reducing costs or increasing income; in the late 60s/early 70s it would actually be bad for a manager's career progression if they did that, because government (and so, via the MoT, the top level of BR) had become so neurotic about the notion that the railways had no future that miles closed/services withdrawn became the metric by which success was measured.
So it doesn't follow that a 'BR 2.0' would suffer the same problems. It depends entirely on what its terms of reference, goals and metrics and stated purpose are. A bit like how the NHS in the 2000s became so obsessed with the 18-week treatment target that a patient who was incorrectly diagnosed and treated for the wrong illness in 17 weeks was seen as a 'success' while one that was correctly diagnosed and treated in 19 weeks was a 'failure'.
If BR 2.0 is charged with providing a service and is judged on passenger miles per year or modal share of journeys made by rail, then it has no incentive to cut services to improve punctuality or reduce overcrowding. After Beeching BR 1.0 was judged solely on (at first) cutting costs and (later) cutting services.
Of course it's extremely unlikely that New New Labour will give BR 2.0 such magnanimous mission goals, but that's as much of a political choice now as the Beeching Axe was in 1963.
Edit: On the actual story about Labour removing services to reduce cancellations; as a short-term solution it makes sense. There is long-standinf shortage of drivers and operators have become too used to existing drivers working overtime and voluntary work on rest days to run their timetables. Now the drivers aren't so willing to do that, services are being cancelled, often on the fly.
Cutting services to fit the reality of the crews available should alleviate that immediate symptom - 10 services that are guaranteed to show up when they're timetabled are better for passengers than 50 services of which any 40 might not actually run.
The real snag - and challenge for an incoming Labour government- is sorting the underlying issue. Adding more traincrew costs money upfront, but fits in well with Starmer's stated goal of provided more 'good, high quality, secure jobs'. They'll have to sell the unions on the benefits of more members and higher rail usage over the power they can wield and the wages/overtime they can command when there's a shortage.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Wednesday 1st May 08:37
2xChevrons said:
Earthdweller said:
There was an article in one of the papers about the good old days of BR and one incident quoted was of overcrowding on a route in the south west .. big push for more trains/carriages
BR response .. cancel the service entirely .. ergo no problem/complaints anymore
Wasn’t it Labour that implemented all the Beeching cuts to the railways
Mixed bag. Wilson campaigned in the 1964 GE on not implementing the Beeching plan, then carried out the majority of the closures (plus some that Beeching hadn't listed) due to a combination of a) seeing how much money BR was hemorrhaging b) intense lobbying from unions representing the car and construction industries. BR response .. cancel the service entirely .. ergo no problem/complaints anymore
Wasn’t it Labour that implemented all the Beeching cuts to the railways
Then Barbara Castle introduced the concept of the 'social railway' which identified that some routes had a social value beyond their financial state and changed the legal and legislative framework to permit operational subsidies - freeing BR from its obligation (held since 1948 and carried over from its private predecessors) to operate at a profit.
On the 'BR cancelled the service to remove overcrowding' thing. Yes, that happened, but that's a symptom of the assumptions and standards of the time, not an inherent upshot of nationalisation.
From Beeching in 1962 to 1989 (when the Settle-Carlise route was reprieved) the entire overriding 'mission statement' of BR was Managed Decline. At every level, success (especially management success) was measured - often explicitly - on how many miles of line were closed and how well a manager could negotiate legal, political and public objections to reduce/remove services. It wasn't even about reducing costs or increasing income; in the late 60s/early 70s it would actually be bad for a manager's career progression if they did that, because government (and so, via the MoT, the top level of BR) had become so neurotic about the notion that the railways had no future that miles closed/services withdrawn became the metric by which success was measured.
So it doesn't follow that a 'BR 2.0' would suffer the same problems. It depends entirely on what its terms of reference, goals and metrics and stated purpose are. A bit like how the NHS in the 2000s became so obsessed with the 18-week treatment target that a patient who was incorrectly diagnosed and treated for the wrong illness in 17 weeks was seen as a 'success' while one that was correctly diagnosed and treated in 19 weeks was a 'failure'.
If BR 2.0 is charged with providing a service and is judged on passenger miles per year or modal share of journeys made by rail, then it has no incentive to cut services to improve punctuality or reduce overcrowding. After Beeching BR 1.0 was judged solely on (at first) cutting costs and (later) cutting services.
Of course it's extremely unlikely that New New Labour will give BR 2.0 such magnanimous mission goals, but that's as much of a political choice now as the Beeching Axe was in 1963.
Earthdweller said:
That’s why I didn’t say that
Labour could have chosen not to decimate the railways but they didn’t
I'm long enough in the tooth to understand exactly what you mean. Ideology is a handicap, leading directly to half truths & misdirection, Labour could have chosen not to decimate the railways but they didn’t
Even in your reply you can't help yourself. Yes, Labour could have chosen not to 'decimate' the railways but they could also have chosen to carry on subsidising daily losses of £300,000 in 1960's prices, to have ignored the massive expansion in car ownership draining traffic from the railways but instead of any of that, you choose to boil the whole thing down to a lower sixth dig at Labour. Ideology is a handicap.
President Merkin said:
Earthdweller said:
That’s why I didn’t say that
Labour could have chosen not to decimate the railways but they didn’t
I'm long enough in the tooth to understand exactly what you mean. Ideology is a handicap, leading directly to half truths & misdirection, Labour could have chosen not to decimate the railways but they didn’t
Even in your reply you can't help yourself. Yes, Labour could have chosen not to 'decimate' the railways but they could also have chosen to carry on subsidising daily losses of £300,000 in 1960's prices, to have ignored the massive expansion in car ownership draining traffic from the railways but instead of any of that, you choose to boil the whole thing down to a lower sixth dig at Labour. Ideology is a handicap.
There’s no ideology
You seem to have a problem with me for some reason .. what I said was factual
Do me a favour and ignore my posts I’m getting sick of every time I post you immediately make a personal attack on me
It’s not big and it’s not clever
Leave it out please
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